“The Art of Florentine Mosaics”
October 21
“Curious About Mars?”
Museum Shop
Annual
Holiday Sale
November 16 to
December 9, 2012
Museum Members’ receive a
20% discount on all purchases.
Shop online at: lizzadromuseum.org
LIZZADRO MUSEUM
Newsletter &
Calendar
of Events
OFJanuary
LAPIDARY
ART
through
November 10 & 11
“Rock & Mineral Identification”
Geologist Sara Johnson presents an
introduction to rocks and minerals.
Learn how to make a basic mineral
test kit. Hands on identification
procedures include observation skills
and hardness tests. Great for teachers
and rockhounds, this program qualifies
for Boy & Girl Scout merit badges. All
materials are provided.
Activity – Ages 8 yrs. to Adult
75 minutes
Admission: $5.00 per person
Museum Members $3.00
Reservations Required: (630) 833-1616
Saturday, October 13 at 10:30 a.m.
Sunday, November 4 at 2 p.m.
Saturday, December 8 at 10:30 a.m.
Planetary geologist, Dr. Paul Sipiera
from the Field Museum will review
the latest findings from the Curiosity
Rover and comment on how it has
contributed to our search for life
on Mars. Learn how this new data
compares to what we previously
interpreted from studies of Martian
meteorites. Also, Dr. Sipiera will
comment and answer questions about
our new meteorite exhibit. If you think
you have found a meteorite, please
bring it in for identification.
Sunday Lecture -Ages 8 yrs. to Adult
2 p.m. 60 minutes
Regular Museum Admission
Reservations Recommended
(630) 833-1616
Lizzadro Museum of
Lapidary Art
Florentine Mosaic portrait of Joseph
Lizzadro, the Museum’s founder, is
created from over 1,400 pieces of natural
stone and took over 4 years to create in
the Lastrucci workshop.
Special Exhibit
October 2, 2012
thru January 6, 2013
“Florentine Mosaics”
The Museum’s 50th
Anniversary Celebration
exhibit features amazing
pictures created from natural
stone. This unique art form
began in Florence, Italy
centuries ago. Florentine
Mosaics are still being
created today. This exhibit
includes contemporary and
traditional styles of figural,
landscape and floral pieces.
Regular Museum Hours & Admission
Artist, Iacopo Lastrucci from Florence,
Italy will be at the Museum to
demonstrate the traditional technique
used in creating Florentine Mosaics.
Art Historian, Dr. Anna Maria
Massinelli will give a presentation on
the history of this unique artform that
originated in the Tuscany region of
Italy and flourished in the Grand Ducal
Medici workshops. Trace the origins
to the Chicago connection of the late
19th century and modern work.
Saturday Demonstration 1pm
60 minutes
Lecture 2pm - 45 minutes
Sunday Demonstrations 1pm & 3pm
Lecture 2pm
Regular Museum Admission
Reservations Recommended
(630) 833-1616
November 17
“Lapidary Day”
Demonstrations by artists from the West
Suburban Lapidary Club will include:
beading, silversmithing, cabochon
cutting, wire wrapping, faceting, handson activities and free jewelry cleaning.
The event is great way to learn more
about stones and lapidary art.
Saturday 10am to 4pm. Free Admission
December 1
“Create A Gem Tree”
Lapidaries Bill and Lois Zima of the
DesPlaines Valley Geological Society
teach how to create a small tree using
gemstones and wire. These beautiful
trees never need water and make a
great gift. All materials are included.
Activity Ages 9 yrs. to Adult
Saturday 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Fee: $20.00 per person,
Museum Members $15.00
Reservations Required: (630) 833-1616
LIZZADRO MUSEUM OF LAPIDARY ART
220 Cottage Hill Ave. Elmhurst, IL 60126 • 630/833-1616
www.lizzadromuseum.org
We would like to hear from you. Please direct questions or comments to [email protected]
Newsletter
Calendar of Events
March&
2009
NONPROFIT
Organization
U.S. POSTAGE
PAID
Elmhurst, Illinois
Permit No. 149
Fall Calendar 2012
th
0
5
niversary
An
Return Service Requested
Return Service Requested
Museum Hours
Group Tours
Admission
Visit us at lizzadromuseum.org
Tuesday to Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sunday 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Closed Mondays.
Closed Thanksgiving Day,
Christmas Day, and New Years Day.
$4.00 Adults, $3.00 Senior Citizens,
$2.00 Students & Teenagers
$1.00 children 7 to 12 yrs.
Free for children under 7.
Friday is Free day.
Members of the Lizzadro Museum
and active members of the Armed Forces
are admitted free of charge
on any day the Museum is open
to the public.
Tours can be arranged for groups
with special interests or needs. The
Museum has facilities to provide
access for physically disabled visitors.
Check out our new website.
See our greatly expanded Gift Shop
inventory and search by stone.
Museum members can receive
their Gift Shop discount on-line.
Volunteer forms are available.
Find us on
This Publication is printed
in part by a grant from the
Illinois Arts Council
,
Fall Programs October thru December 2012
Mystery Mosaics
By Peter M. Vilim
I went to grade school in St. Giles Parish in Oak Park. In
those days, catholic school education included almost daily
visits to the church, and for those who have visited St. Giles,
it has one of the most architecturally awe-inspiring churches
in the area. Some of the most striking features are the
Stations of the Cross. For the hundreds of times I was in that
church, I thought the Stations were very good paintings –
highly detailed, very colorful, deeply affecting. It wasn’t until
moving to Elmhurst years later, visiting the Lizzadro Museum
of Lapidary Art, that I realized what I had missed at St. Giles
all those years. On my first visit to Lizzadro, my attention
was drawn to a picture hanging on a side wall. Perhaps I
wondered why a “museum of stones” would feature a painting.
Whatever drew me to the picture, as I got closer I realized
this was no “painting” – it was an assemblage of finely cut,
intricately inlaid stones, so perfectly fitted together that the
seams between the stones were barely perceptible. This was
my introduction to the art of the Florentine Mosaic, what
our ancient Italian ancestors called commesso di pietre dure,
literally “joining together of hard stones.” On my next visit
to St. Giles, it finally dawned on me that the Stations were
not paintings at all, but masterpieces of this unique and rare
art form. Over the next 30 years I pursued the history of
Florentine Mosaics and the background of the precious St.
Giles treasures.
Mosaics had been around for millennia before the Florentines
perfected their craft. The ancient mosaic forms are the more
familiar “Byzantine” mosaics, using more or less uniform
pieces of colored glass, or tesserae, assembled to represent a
subject. While the best of these works are masterful, the
materials are relatively easy to work with. The technique
relies on mortar and grout to fill in the wide and irregular
gaps between tesserae arranged in established patterns. With
the use of natural stone inlay or intarsia, the work became
more dynamic. The Florentine masters of the 16th century
were driven to satisfy one of history’s most exacting art
clients - Lorenzo De’ Medici - with his love of gemstones.
The Florentine artisans rose to the challenge and took the
mosaic art to its highest level, selecting a variety of natural
stones for their unique ability to communicate color, texture
and shape, painstakingly cutting them into thicknesses
measured in millimeters, and fitting them together so tightly
that the completed work looks, well, like a painting, or even
a photograph.
In 1588 Ferdinando De Medici founded the Opificio delle
Pietre Dure, the laboratory of hardstone inlay, which trained a
continuous stream of masters of the technique that continues,
diminished in numbers but not in expertise, to this very
day. The Lizzadro Museum’s 50th Anniversary distinguished
guest, Iacopo Lastrucci, is our generation’s master, having
received the gift of training in just the same way as centuries
of generations have received theirs, from father to son, in
this case from the master Bruno Lastrucci, one of the most
renowned masters in Florence today. In their Florence studio
the art of mosaic is pursued with skills and tools unchanged
for five centuries. Starting with a subject – the human form
being the most challenging – the artisans sketch a template
defining the forms and color patterns required to effectuate
the work. To capture the subtle variations in form, shading
and texture of the subject matter, these templates may
contain thousands of individual pieces, looking something
like a “paint-by-numbers.” The mosaicists then spend an
inordinate amount of time selecting stone – agate, jasper,
malachite, marble, onyx, lapis lazuli – to closely replicate the
lines and color of each individual piece of the subject matter
template. The search for the perfect stone can be extreme –
many artists hand-pick their supplies from Tuscan mountain
streams, often maintaining the utmost secrecy of their
sources and closely guarding their inventories of irreplaceable
specimens. The stones are then rough cut into slices a few
millimeters thin. If the artist is good and fortunate, the
sliced stone reveals the perfect color and natural shading
needed. Quite often, however, the sliced stone reveals a
flaw – a hidden vein of impurity, a color that fades when
exposed to sunlight, or a soft spot that crumbles away while
being worked. The master overcomes such setbacks. When
the perfect stone is found, the artist uses the template to
hand-cut each individual piece, using a bow-saw made of a
cherry branch and a thin wire on which an abrasive powder is
continuously applied – each type of stone requiring a different
level of abrasion. The pieces are then assembled into a
framework, most often on black slate, which has also been
hand-cut to the specific dimensions of the subject matter.
The stones are then finely ground and polished until they fit
together seamlessly. A small subject of perhaps 5x7 inches
may take a month or more to complete. Major works such as
those on display at the current Lizzadro exhibit have taken
months and even years to complete. The results, as you can
now appreciate, are remarkable.
I made the connection to the Lastrucci Studio through
internet searches on the subject matter of Florentine
Mosaics. Years ago, in the early days of search engines,
the keywords “Florentine Mosaics” or “commesso di pietre
dure” didn’t return more than a handful of sites. One of
those was managed by an enterprising gentleman named
Luca Navarre – www.madeinfierenze.it. Luca’s site features
many local crafts of Florence. I gladly shared my discovery
of the St. Giles mosaics with Luca, who passed them along
to Bruno and Iacopo. “Impossible!” they responded. Such
works could not have been produced outside Florence, and
Lastrucci knew or had trained every master of the commesso
mosaics in Florence, none of whom had ever heard of the
St. Giles Stations. That launched further searches into
the Archdiocese of Chicago archives and the construction
records of St. Giles, neither of which produced any clue to
Apprentice using a bow saw at the Lastrucci workshop.
Iacopo Lastrucci
the origins of the Stations. Not content to let the mystery
remain, the Lastruccis’ commissioned the renowned art
historian, writer and Florentine Mosaic specialist Anna Maria
Massinelli to dig further. With her prodding, I went back to
St. Giles at an opportune moment – their 75th anniversary
memorial – and found a one-page write-up outlining
the parish history, including the decades-long process of
building the magnificent church. This outline credited
Daprato Studios with the production of the interior statuary,
altarpieces and Stations of the Cross. Daprato operated a
studio in Pietresanta, Italy, another noted stoneworking
area, which helped build, decorate or restore many church
structures in the Chicago Archdiocese dating back to just
after the Chicago Fire. Alas, their Chicago studio, which
stood on Adams Street in the city for 100 years, had closed,
but the company had emerged as Daprato Rigali Studios, now
focusing on the restoration of religious and public buildings.
Ms. Massinelli made contact with John Rigali, a fourthgeneration descendant of the Daprato studio founders, who
found the original work order authorizing the Stations of the
Cross artwork for St. Giles Church. Included in the invoice
file was a picture of the artisans of the old Daprato Studio
– five gifted craftsman of the Florentine school of mosaics –
showing one of the Stations panels under construction. The
mystery was, at last, solved.
For our 50th Anniversary the Museum is honored to host Iacopo
and Asami Lastrucci and Dr. Anna Maria Massinelli to present
and demonstrate the amazing art of Florentine Mosaics. Please
join us on November 10 or 11.
Peter Vilim is Florentine Mosaic enthusiast and seeks out hidden
artistic treasures around the world.
Assembling a lapis tabletop at the Lastrucci workshop.
Visiting Artist
Gwyn Kaitis
“Contemporary Stone Mosaics”
September 25 through December 30, 2012
Artist, Gwyn Kaitis, is
known for incorporating
natural materials into
her mosaics. Kaitis is a
founding faculty member
of the Chicago Mosaic
School and Vice President
of the Society of American Mosaic Artists. Her work is
included in national and international art collections.
Pictured above: “Meltdown” combines red calcite, pyrite,
petrified wood, chalcedony, stibnite, orange quartz, and
smalti (glass). The piece is a 3D sculpture measuring 11”x
6”x6”. Kaitis will present a lecture on Contemporary
Mosaics for Smithsonian Museum Day on September 29.
Mystery Mosaics
By Peter M. Vilim
I went to grade school in St. Giles Parish in Oak Park. In
those days, catholic school education included almost daily
visits to the church, and for those who have visited St. Giles,
it has one of the most architecturally awe-inspiring churches
in the area. Some of the most striking features are the
Stations of the Cross. For the hundreds of times I was in that
church, I thought the Stations were very good paintings –
highly detailed, very colorful, deeply affecting. It wasn’t until
moving to Elmhurst years later, visiting the Lizzadro Museum
of Lapidary Art, that I realized what I had missed at St. Giles
all those years. On my first visit to Lizzadro, my attention
was drawn to a picture hanging on a side wall. Perhaps I
wondered why a “museum of stones” would feature a painting.
Whatever drew me to the picture, as I got closer I realized
this was no “painting” – it was an assemblage of finely cut,
intricately inlaid stones, so perfectly fitted together that the
seams between the stones were barely perceptible. This was
my introduction to the art of the Florentine Mosaic, what
our ancient Italian ancestors called commesso di pietre dure,
literally “joining together of hard stones.” On my next visit
to St. Giles, it finally dawned on me that the Stations were
not paintings at all, but masterpieces of this unique and rare
art form. Over the next 30 years I pursued the history of
Florentine Mosaics and the background of the precious St.
Giles treasures.
Mosaics had been around for millennia before the Florentines
perfected their craft. The ancient mosaic forms are the more
familiar “Byzantine” mosaics, using more or less uniform
pieces of colored glass, or tesserae, assembled to represent a
subject. While the best of these works are masterful, the
materials are relatively easy to work with. The technique
relies on mortar and grout to fill in the wide and irregular
gaps between tesserae arranged in established patterns. With
the use of natural stone inlay or intarsia, the work became
more dynamic. The Florentine masters of the 16th century
were driven to satisfy one of history’s most exacting art
clients - Lorenzo De’ Medici - with his love of gemstones.
The Florentine artisans rose to the challenge and took the
mosaic art to its highest level, selecting a variety of natural
stones for their unique ability to communicate color, texture
and shape, painstakingly cutting them into thicknesses
measured in millimeters, and fitting them together so tightly
that the completed work looks, well, like a painting, or even
a photograph.
In 1588 Ferdinando De Medici founded the Opificio delle
Pietre Dure, the laboratory of hardstone inlay, which trained a
continuous stream of masters of the technique that continues,
diminished in numbers but not in expertise, to this very
day. The Lizzadro Museum’s 50th Anniversary distinguished
guest, Iacopo Lastrucci, is our generation’s master, having
received the gift of training in just the same way as centuries
of generations have received theirs, from father to son, in
this case from the master Bruno Lastrucci, one of the most
renowned masters in Florence today. In their Florence studio
the art of mosaic is pursued with skills and tools unchanged
for five centuries. Starting with a subject – the human form
being the most challenging – the artisans sketch a template
defining the forms and color patterns required to effectuate
the work. To capture the subtle variations in form, shading
and texture of the subject matter, these templates may
contain thousands of individual pieces, looking something
like a “paint-by-numbers.” The mosaicists then spend an
inordinate amount of time selecting stone – agate, jasper,
malachite, marble, onyx, lapis lazuli – to closely replicate the
lines and color of each individual piece of the subject matter
template. The search for the perfect stone can be extreme –
many artists hand-pick their supplies from Tuscan mountain
streams, often maintaining the utmost secrecy of their
sources and closely guarding their inventories of irreplaceable
specimens. The stones are then rough cut into slices a few
millimeters thin. If the artist is good and fortunate, the
sliced stone reveals the perfect color and natural shading
needed. Quite often, however, the sliced stone reveals a
flaw – a hidden vein of impurity, a color that fades when
exposed to sunlight, or a soft spot that crumbles away while
being worked. The master overcomes such setbacks. When
the perfect stone is found, the artist uses the template to
hand-cut each individual piece, using a bow-saw made of a
cherry branch and a thin wire on which an abrasive powder is
continuously applied – each type of stone requiring a different
level of abrasion. The pieces are then assembled into a
framework, most often on black slate, which has also been
hand-cut to the specific dimensions of the subject matter.
The stones are then finely ground and polished until they fit
together seamlessly. A small subject of perhaps 5x7 inches
may take a month or more to complete. Major works such as
those on display at the current Lizzadro exhibit have taken
months and even years to complete. The results, as you can
now appreciate, are remarkable.
I made the connection to the Lastrucci Studio through
internet searches on the subject matter of Florentine
Mosaics. Years ago, in the early days of search engines,
the keywords “Florentine Mosaics” or “commesso di pietre
dure” didn’t return more than a handful of sites. One of
those was managed by an enterprising gentleman named
Luca Navarre – www.madeinfierenze.it. Luca’s site features
many local crafts of Florence. I gladly shared my discovery
of the St. Giles mosaics with Luca, who passed them along
to Bruno and Iacopo. “Impossible!” they responded. Such
works could not have been produced outside Florence, and
Lastrucci knew or had trained every master of the commesso
mosaics in Florence, none of whom had ever heard of the
St. Giles Stations. That launched further searches into
the Archdiocese of Chicago archives and the construction
records of St. Giles, neither of which produced any clue to
Apprentice using a bow saw at the Lastrucci workshop.
Iacopo Lastrucci
the origins of the Stations. Not content to let the mystery
remain, the Lastruccis’ commissioned the renowned art
historian, writer and Florentine Mosaic specialist Anna Maria
Massinelli to dig further. With her prodding, I went back to
St. Giles at an opportune moment – their 75th anniversary
memorial – and found a one-page write-up outlining
the parish history, including the decades-long process of
building the magnificent church. This outline credited
Daprato Studios with the production of the interior statuary,
altarpieces and Stations of the Cross. Daprato operated a
studio in Pietresanta, Italy, another noted stoneworking
area, which helped build, decorate or restore many church
structures in the Chicago Archdiocese dating back to just
after the Chicago Fire. Alas, their Chicago studio, which
stood on Adams Street in the city for 100 years, had closed,
but the company had emerged as Daprato Rigali Studios, now
focusing on the restoration of religious and public buildings.
Ms. Massinelli made contact with John Rigali, a fourthgeneration descendant of the Daprato studio founders, who
found the original work order authorizing the Stations of the
Cross artwork for St. Giles Church. Included in the invoice
file was a picture of the artisans of the old Daprato Studio
– five gifted craftsman of the Florentine school of mosaics –
showing one of the Stations panels under construction. The
mystery was, at last, solved.
For our 50th Anniversary the Museum is honored to host Iacopo
and Asami Lastrucci and Dr. Anna Maria Massinelli to present
and demonstrate the amazing art of Florentine Mosaics. Please
join us on November 10 or 11.
Peter Vilim is Florentine Mosaic enthusiast and seeks out hidden
artistic treasures around the world.
Assembling a lapis tabletop at the Lastrucci workshop.
Visiting Artist
Gwyn Kaitis
“Contemporary Stone Mosaics”
September 25 through December 30, 2012
Artist, Gwyn Kaitis, is
known for incorporating
natural materials into
her mosaics. Kaitis is a
founding faculty member
of the Chicago Mosaic
School and Vice President
of the Society of American Mosaic Artists. Her work is
included in national and international art collections.
Pictured above: “Meltdown” combines red calcite, pyrite,
petrified wood, chalcedony, stibnite, orange quartz, and
smalti (glass). The piece is a 3D sculpture measuring 11”x
6”x6”. Kaitis will present a lecture on Contemporary
Mosaics for Smithsonian Museum Day on September 29.
“The Art of Florentine Mosaics”
October 21
“Curious About Mars?”
Museum Shop
Annual
Holiday Sale
November 16 to
December 9, 2012
Museum Members’ receive a
20% discount on all purchases.
Shop online at: lizzadromuseum.org
LIZZADRO MUSEUM
Newsletter &
Calendar
of Events
OFJanuary
LAPIDARY
ART
through
November 10 & 11
“Rock & Mineral Identification”
Geologist Sara Johnson presents an
introduction to rocks and minerals.
Learn how to make a basic mineral
test kit. Hands on identification
procedures include observation skills
and hardness tests. Great for teachers
and rockhounds, this program qualifies
for Boy & Girl Scout merit badges. All
materials are provided.
Activity – Ages 8 yrs. to Adult
75 minutes
Admission: $5.00 per person
Museum Members $3.00
Reservations Required: (630) 833-1616
Saturday, October 13 at 10:30 a.m.
Sunday, November 4 at 2 p.m.
Saturday, December 8 at 10:30 a.m.
Planetary geologist, Dr. Paul Sipiera
from the Field Museum will review
the latest findings from the Curiosity
Rover and comment on how it has
contributed to our search for life
on Mars. Learn how this new data
compares to what we previously
interpreted from studies of Martian
meteorites. Also, Dr. Sipiera will
comment and answer questions about
our new meteorite exhibit. If you think
you have found a meteorite, please
bring it in for identification.
Sunday Lecture -Ages 8 yrs. to Adult
2 p.m. 60 minutes
Regular Museum Admission
Reservations Recommended
(630) 833-1616
Lizzadro Museum of
Lapidary Art
Florentine Mosaic portrait of Joseph
Lizzadro, the Museum’s founder, is
created from over 1,400 pieces of natural
stone and took over 4 years to create in
the Lastrucci workshop.
Special Exhibit
October 2, 2012
thru January 6, 2013
“Florentine Mosaics”
The Museum’s 50th
Anniversary Celebration
exhibit features amazing
pictures created from natural
stone. This unique art form
began in Florence, Italy
centuries ago. Florentine
Mosaics are still being
created today. This exhibit
includes contemporary and
traditional styles of figural,
landscape and floral pieces.
Regular Museum Hours & Admission
Artist, Iacopo Lastrucci from Florence,
Italy will be at the Museum to
demonstrate the traditional technique
used in creating Florentine Mosaics.
Art Historian, Dr. Anna Maria
Massinelli will give a presentation on
the history of this unique artform that
originated in the Tuscany region of
Italy and flourished in the Grand Ducal
Medici workshops. Trace the origins
to the Chicago connection of the late
19th century and modern work.
Saturday Demonstration 1pm
60 minutes
Lecture 2pm - 45 minutes
Sunday Demonstrations 1pm & 3pm
Lecture 2pm
Regular Museum Admission
Reservations Recommended
(630) 833-1616
November 17
“Lapidary Day”
Demonstrations by artists from the West
Suburban Lapidary Club will include:
beading, silversmithing, cabochon
cutting, wire wrapping, faceting, handson activities and free jewelry cleaning.
The event is great way to learn more
about stones and lapidary art.
Saturday 10am to 4pm. Free Admission
December 1
“Create A Gem Tree”
Lapidaries Bill and Lois Zima of the
DesPlaines Valley Geological Society
teach how to create a small tree using
gemstones and wire. These beautiful
trees never need water and make a
great gift. All materials are included.
Activity Ages 9 yrs. to Adult
Saturday 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Fee: $20.00 per person,
Museum Members $15.00
Reservations Required: (630) 833-1616
LIZZADRO MUSEUM OF LAPIDARY ART
220 Cottage Hill Ave. Elmhurst, IL 60126 • 630/833-1616
www.lizzadromuseum.org
We would like to hear from you. Please direct questions or comments to [email protected]
Newsletter
Calendar of Events
March&
2009
NONPROFIT
Organization
U.S. POSTAGE
PAID
Elmhurst, Illinois
Permit No. 149
Fall Calendar 2012
th
0
5
niversary
An
Return Service Requested
Return Service Requested
Museum Hours
Group Tours
Admission
Visit us at lizzadromuseum.org
Tuesday to Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sunday 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Closed Mondays.
Closed Thanksgiving Day,
Christmas Day, and New Years Day.
$4.00 Adults, $3.00 Senior Citizens,
$2.00 Students & Teenagers
$1.00 children 7 to 12 yrs.
Free for children under 7.
Friday is Free day.
Members of the Lizzadro Museum
and active members of the Armed Forces
are admitted free of charge
on any day the Museum is open
to the public.
Tours can be arranged for groups
with special interests or needs. The
Museum has facilities to provide
access for physically disabled visitors.
Check out our new website.
See our greatly expanded Gift Shop
inventory and search by stone.
Museum members can receive
their Gift Shop discount on-line.
Volunteer forms are available.
Find us on
This Publication is printed
in part by a grant from the
Illinois Arts Council
,
Fall Programs October thru December 2012